April 18, 2017

Straight from "Criminal Minds" Profile - Steven Stephens

Those seemingly random acts of murder aren't so random.

Weekly and in reruns, members of the fictional elite FBI team on "Criminal Minds" present profiles of serial killers. Often, way back in the childhood of those monsters there were traits signaling their propensity to later murder.

Among those traits is abusing animals. As the New York Post reports, Steve Stephens was known by his acquaintances to torment animals. Those included his parakeet. Stephens is the prime suspect in the murder of an elderly man in Cleveland, Ohio. He featured that on Facebook Live.

That exhibitionism is also common in the "Criminal Minds" profile. The murderer, usually someone who feels inadequate, screams out through his or her anti-social actions: Look at me.

When I was growing up during the 1950s on the mean streets of Jersey City, there were two brothers. Together they staged capturing a cat and putting it on fire in a bag. The sound of cat's screams stayed with us in the neighborhood.

Maybe that's why I deved 15 years to animal rescue. Before they were 20, both brothers were in prison for life. Perhaps no coincidence, their sister became a nurse.